


The Lines Between (Oh, how they blur)

by TimesBeingWhatTheyAre



Category: The Politician (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, RIver why, Sadness, long drabble basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre/pseuds/TimesBeingWhatTheyAre
Summary: When he wakes, it's to find River's blood on his hands. No amount of water can ever wash it off.
Relationships: River Barkley/Payton Hobart
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	The Lines Between (Oh, how they blur)

It takes a few minutes to shower and wash the blood off of him. It’s dried on and hard to scrub off, but eventually comes away in flakes of red that swirl down the drain until he’s clean.

It feels a bit like washing the day away. Like it’s a bad dream but-

Payton watches the last of the blood whirl away, and thinks about crying. Maybe he could, but he doesn’t really feel like it. 

Maybe tomorrow.  
________________________________________

_“I really did love you,” River says, with the dimpled smile that Payton has always been undeniably attracted to, and it distracts him from his selfish rant for a moment._

_He takes a second to breath, shocked slightly by the handsomeness of River all over again, and he’s too late to spot the gun until-_

_River collapses slowly, onto Payton, and together they fall hard to the floor._

_“River?” Payton whispers quietly, horrified but hopeful and-_

_River’s eyes are closed, and there’s a peaceful smile on his face. Payton sits there, River half on top of him, for what could be hours, and thinks of nothing._  
________________________________________

He wakes up, not quite in a panic but not quite calm either. There’s no tears on his cheeks when he looks, and no cooling blood pooling in his hands.

He sleeps (and the blood seeps into his clothes and the mattress). 

________________________________________

It’s the next day, and Payton still feels like it’s a dream. It’s all a dream, his friends, the campaign, River. River used to be a living dream and now-

Well, now Payton glances away from James and River dimples from corners that he shouldn’t be in anymore. Life is the nightmare, and he can’t escape from it.

________________________________________

After the show’s over, after Astrid uses it to launch her own platform, Payton is angry, angry enough that he’s shaking and he wants nothing more than to go over to her and punch her squarely in the face. He doesn’t.

  
He has no grounds to stand on anyway; it’s not like this entire event wasn’t orchestrated for his campaign, but still, how dare she cheapen River’s memorial?

He wasn’t lying when he said the best man could no longer win. Payton isn’t the best man, and isn’t even a good one, not when all his human parts died alongside River.

He steps backstage, with everyone leaving, and says nothing to Astrid as she strides past, not pretending to put on tears now that nobody’s watching. James and McAfee are at his side, as always, and Alice isn’t far behind, but he doesn’t want their brand of comfort right now.

It feels a little like he’s an elastic band, getting stretched out and stretched out but he can’t afford that snap. It’ll damage the campaign too much.

“Not now,” he says to them, and steps away on his own, hurrying to the gender-neutral toilets nearby and slipping quietly into an empty cubicle.

Payton sits down on the lid, and puts his head in his hands. He wonders blankly, if this is when he should be crying. Instead, all there is is empty (and he wonders if it will ever go away now).

For a second, he’s angry. Furiously, burningly angry at River for forcing this upon him, for forcing Payton to love him and then to leave him like that and not consider for a second that Payton might have something to say about it.

Then it fades, because River’s dead and anger is useless.

“Payton? Are you okay?” James asks from outside, and Payton smiles, a little bitter but not surprised.

He stands up easily.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he says, and walks out, James tagging behind looking a little worried. He shouldn’t be.

Payton isn’t lying.

________________________________________

He sleeps and his dreams are full of River _River River_

He smiles from the bed, easy and bright as always, and Payton rolls his eyes as he joins him there and denies the way he snuggles into River’s side, easy as a glove.

He smells the same in Payton’s dreams. He smells the same as he lies, unseeing in his arms.

When Payton wakes, the scent is gone, but the blood is back on his hands.

________________________________________

  
He nicks himself with a knife in the cafeteria on the fourth day since River’s death. His hand hurts, throbbing with a dull pain that could be real or imagined, but the issue is that when he looks down, the blood smears over his hands and the roaring in his ears returns.

Payton forces himself to smile at the others, and waves his hand in demonstration, saying “Back in a minute,” and slipping to the nearest bathroom.

It’s luckily quite empty, so there’s nobody to watch as he turns the tap on and washes the blood off of his hands again. There’s nobody to see the way he starts to breath a little too quickly at the unwavering memory of River’s head lying heavy in his lap and the blood splashed on his fingers and his face, and nobody to see when he rushes into a stall and throws up the meagre amount of food he had eaten for lunch.

Afterwards, he splashes his face and tells himself its to refresh his skin, and not to wash it clean of phantom blood.

________________________________________

In the end, it’s literally nothing that sets him off. He’s walking down the corridor, no Alice anymore, but James and McAfee loyally by his side, and Payton happens to glance at a window, and outside it’s pouring with rain.

Out of the blue, he remembers how River looked that day in the rain, and the way he had been serene under the punishing weather, smile dim but real, and Payton had done nothing but stare at the man who he could love.

  
“Come on, Payton,” River says, and opens his eyes to beckon Payton over, and he had gone, then, and kissed the fool who loved the rain and who could love someone as inhuman as him.

It burns now, to think of it, and Payton remembers suddenly what crying feels like.

“Excuse me,” he mutters, and blindly walks away, this time stumbling out into the rain and barely computing the way that the raindrops hit his skin and soak into his clothes, and for once he isn’t thinking of how this will look to any on-lookers and how it could damage his chances.

Payton manages it far enough to huddle under a tree, a short way behind campus, where people don’t tend to walk and won’t do in this rain for sure.

Then the tears start, and they won’t stop.

  
He still isn’t devastated, not like he should be, but somehow there’s no way to stop moisture from burning its way out of his eyelids and onto his cheeks, no way to stop his body from shaking and heaving with sobs that tear out of him reluctantly, no way to get back his control.

He thinks of River, briefly, and the way that he always, always managed to make him cry. Nobody else ever could see him like River had, and when he looks up again, River sits next to him under the dubious shelter of the small tree.

“It’s okay to cry, you know,” River says, understanding like always, and Payton can’t take it.

“No, no it’s not, River! Because you’re gone! You left me! I needed you and-“ his voice breaks off and he crashes to his knees from where he’s been standing upright, too overcome to continue.

“Why,” he asks quietly, but River doesn’t answer that. Not yet. 

Instead, Payton feels his warm hand on his shoulder, and he bows his head, not daring to look up just yet, and by the time he manages to force the tears away again, the comforting weight is gone.

He sits back, exhausted, and checks his watch. He’s missed a lesson, but the panic doesn’t come like it usually does, because the teachers will excuse him a little due to Alice’s supposed cheating and their ‘break-up’ last night and supposes that they’ll feel sympathy for him, not irritation.

It takes him a long time to move. He goes home to change his clothes, clean himself up and then comes back, and avoids James and McAfee for the afternoon.

And when he sleeps, the rain can’t wash away River’s blood.

________________________________________

“Okay, Payton, look, I know we aren’t really the touchy kind of friends, but I have to ask,” James corners him and says firmly, and Payton tries his best to meet his eyes, look calm and look like he’s not at all worried about where James is going with this.

“Are you alright?”

Oh, Payton can answer that one. There’s no need to panic.

“Yes, James, I’m fine. You know that,” he responds, and adds a smile for good measure.

“Are you sure? Because you’ve run off on us like three times in so many days now, and we don’t want this to affect numbers,” he continues and Payton can’t help but let out a sigh of laughter at the mention of numbers.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, sorry. You were saying?”

The numbers are still a vital part of Payton’s plan, obviously. It’s just that without River, the plan feels pointless. Payton carefully doesn’t think about that, locks it away and throws the key back into River’s dining room.  
________________________________________

On election day, Payton stands and loudly debates Astrid. On election day, the debate turns into a disaster and the rest of the time is bound to go the same way, and once its done and the students have left, he stays to make it look like he’s trying to make amends with her (but having no intention of doing so), only, his plans get derailed again.

One minute he’s calmly waiting there, pretending to be putting all of his stuff back together, and the next moment he spots an abandoned pin under one of the chairs in the front seat. He frowns, and steps forwards to pick it up, ready to throw it in the bin but when he flips it over-

It’s not his badge. It’s not Astrid’s. It’s River’s.

River’s handsome face is the one smiling at him from the round pin, clearly dishevelled now from having been under the seat so long but it’s River. 

The air begins to feel a little thin as he stares at the badge, and he realises that Astrid and Skye are still there, both packing up separately metres away even as River materialises from thin air in the front row, just visible from his peripheral vision.

“I didn’t design them, you know,” River says, and Payton has to smile, because of course he didn’t. He didn’t really want to be president. They both knew it was all Astrid’s idea.

“I know,” he replies, then flushes as Skye turns to look at him, but unable to look back or respond. 

He does, however, grab hold of River’s hand and pulls the two of them outside the small chapel and into a convenient nearby alcove of trees. 

“It looks good,” he comments, flipping the badge over and pretending like it doesn’t affect him at all. He’s doing well at it too, until he looks up and sees how River is smiling knowingly at him, and Payton drops the act (like he always does for River).

“You always looked good,” he settles for instead, and freezes as River hugs him, then goes to hug him back, just as tightly. “You could have done anything you wanted, why-“

“You know why,” River says this time, and Payton keens, a small sob breaking out of his lips and he tries to muffle it in the stiff fabric of River’s shirt, even as River strokes his head softly.

“You can win this, Payton,” River whispers and Payton nods jerkily, biting his lip viciously as he prevents any more noises from emerging.

“I know I can,” he replies, and pretends like that sentence doesn’t end with ‘but what’s the point?’.

By the time River leaves again, Payton throws the badge harshly into the trees and dusts himself off, hoping that his eyes aren’t too bloodshot. 

When he emerges, Skye is standing all too close and watching him with narrowed eyes. Payton raises a smooth eyebrow at them, and walks away.

He thinks for a little while that they buy it.

(They don’t)

________________________________________

“So, you okay there, president?” Skye asks, a whole day of disappointments later, and he narrows his eyes at them now.

“Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be,” he responds, and keeps on walking.

“No reason, just you seemed a little- stressed, yesterday,” they tack on and Payton pretends disinterest.

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but I had every confidence in us,” he replies smoothly, but Skye isn’t the type to be easily deterred.

“Really?”

“Really,” he confirms, and absolutely does not look at River’s locker as they walk past, and he can continue to pretend that neither of them know if he wants, but Skye absolutely notices him not noticing. 

________________________________________

Now in his dreams, River wins the election. He wins it fairly, and by a large margin, and Payton knows he hates him for it, but as he sneaks back into River’s house that night, he knows that River will always do a better job at making him forget that.

Somehow, River continues to be the only one to make him human.

________________________________________

They corner him at the end of the day, when he’s about to head home and study for the test tomorrow.

“Is this an intervention?” he asks, looking around at the small circle that surrounds him. James, Skye, Alice and McAfee all watch him, and he meets each one in the eyes to see why they aren’t letting him move.

“Yes. We are your campaign staff and your friends, and you should tell us things,” James steps forward and tells him, and Payton smiles at him.

“Sure," he says falsely, and pushes past. 

It's always been a mistake to let people in. He should learn better.

________________________________________

It’s a memorial assembly that they dedicate to him that finally does it. They are just heading in to a special assembly when Payton sees the slideshow up- the picture of River in his sports outfit, grinning at his own private joke as usual, and the smile slides off Payton’s face in return. 

It flicks to the next picture, clearly gathered by a friend, because now it’s one of River laughing in his room, but the window behind him just reminds Payton of-

“Payton, calm down. Remember? Deep breaths,” River says from in front of him, and Payton stops, ignoring the looks of his alive friends, takes one more look at the projector, and turns tail out of the hall.

Some of the teachers look like they will try and stop him, but he knows he knows that remaining in that assembly will result in either the entire student body seeing him cry or following in River’s footsteps the second he gets home. So he flees.

He makes it to a bathroom and locks himself in one of the stalls in a manner that’s becoming familiar, and sits on the ground regardless of the germs he knows are lurking there. He can’t care about that, not now, because he can’t breath.

He tries to draw in a breath, but all he can think of is River and the stupid understanding he gave to everyone and the way that he hid it from even him whilst they were each other’s self-professed escapes, and the next breath gets caught in once-good memories of a man that he came as close to loving as he thinks he’s capable of.

Payton’s a little dizzy, but still the air doesn’t come.

Dimly, he registers River’s concerned presence on the floor opposite him, and the hand placed on his knee for support, but this time it’s not supporting.

“You’re not real,” he whispers to River with his ever-dwindling oxygen, and closes his eyes to the pain as his world goes black.

He comes to a few seconds later, and River is still there, watching him with worried eyes. 

“You need to breath next time, like we practiced,” he says, and Payton snorts despairingly, because what’s the point of anything without River?

He hasn’t passed out in a long time, but he’s always been a little more anxious than others seem to think. 

“River, how did you think I could do this without you?” he asks, and cracks open an eyelid to see River’s serious face as he picks a response.

“You have to. And- I guess I was being selfish for once,” he admits, and Payton closes his eyes again, tears spilling over at the edges as he registers the truth in those words. He has to.

“But I don’t want to,” he whispers back, like it’s a secret, and in some ways he guesses it is, because it’s not like anybody alive knows it.

Briefly, he thinks of finding the pocketknife that is still hidden in a secret pocket of his bag, and just taking it to his wrists and allowing himself to join River. It would be more painful and lengthy than the gunshot but he doesn’t have a gun right now. He does have a pocketknife.

However, there’s the sound of footsteps outside the bathroom, and Payton wipes ineffectually at the tears still dripping down his face. They open the main door with a small patter of footsteps, and James calls out “Payton?”

There’s clearly only one stall closed, with everyone else in assembly, and so Payton is both surprised and not to hear James knocking on the door of his cubicle.

“Payton, the teachers are looking for you,” he says, and Payton smiles tiredly.

“Tell them I’m ill,” he replies (orders) and James ignores it. 

“What’s going on?” he asks, and Payton doesn’t answer this time. He still can’t stop the water that carves its way through his marble face, but he’s not expecting James to somehow jimmy the door and open it.

“Jesus, Payton- are you-“ James stutters, but stops when Payton rolls his face away from his oldest friend. Instead, he takes a step forward, closes and locks the door behind them again, then crouches right there on thedisgusting floor next to his friend and wraps his arms around him.

Payton freezes. It’s not like River, who was always taller and rock hard to hug, but James is warm and familiar and comforting anyway.

He leans forwards into it a little, and can’t help himself when he starts to cry a little harder into James’ (real) shoulder, feeling bereft and devastated and sorry for himself and River, and James doesn’t say anything else. 

River leaves at some point. They are both surely running late for classes by now, but still Payton can’t make himself let go of the comfort of a friend in the absence of the man who made it all worth it.

He supposes that this means the people who have seen him cry are now numbered at two, but for once, it just doesn’t seem to mean anything other than loneliness.

________________________________________

And this time, when he dreams, he sees River where they first met, in Payton’s room, and he remembers how sweet their first kiss was.

He wakes to find tears on his cheeks.

River is nowhere to be seen.


End file.
